The Question Your Novel Answers

Please welcome Nancy Johnson back to WU today, this time as our newest WU contributor! We’re thrilled to have her with us!

Race has colored every part of my life from the stories my parents told from the front lines of the Civil Rights Movement to my own experience of being called the n-word by a white coworker. During the years it took me to conceive my novel and write it, I encountered the stories of countless black boys and men murdered nationwide at the hands of white police officers and in my city of Chicago at the hands of people who looked like them in their own communities. There were also the stories of the disenfranchised white working class that felt left behind struggling to grasp a new foothold in America. All of these stories informed my understanding of the world and the question of my novel.

The complexities of race and class loomed above me gray and amorphous like a storm cloud and I wrestled with these issues that offered no easy answers. I thought about what I really wanted to know. What was the question that kept me up at night?

Is what connects us in our common humanity more powerful than forces of race and class that divide us?

Over the years I’ve often heard the advice to write what you know. Many of the characters in my novel are composites of relatives, friends, ladies from the beauty shop, the guys who gather to swap stories at my local Starbucks, and of course, me. However, the larger story is all about interrogating what I don’t know through the lives of my characters.

When I worked as a journalist, one of the most important storytelling lessons I learned was to tell the larger story through the narrow prism of one person, one family, or one community. I couldn’t easily get my arms around the socio-political behemoths of race and class. However, I could relate to Ruth, a black engineer trying to connect with the son she abandoned at birth. A woman isolated by her own mother and brother when she left them behind in a dying factory town to pursue her ambitions. I found myself drawn to Midnight, a smart, mischievous eleven-year-old white boy with a dead mother, a sick grandmother, and a father who recently lost his job at the plant.

The lives of Ruth and Midnight intersect in The Kindest Lie, my novel about two people from vastly different backgrounds with a common need for family, belonging, and home. I chose them to bring my story question to life, to put flesh on the bones of my understanding. Throughout my writing of the book, I asked even more questions of these characters: Are we always tethered to our pasts, to the people and places that birthed us? Is mothering innate or learned? How does toxic masculinity transcend race? What are the perceptions we hold about our own race and class status that we hide from the world for fear of judgment? Do our mistakes define us or can we rewrite our own stories?

As I wrote each scene, I returned to my primary question and the secondary ones to make sure every scene addressed them. I tried to get under the skin of these characters who came to the story with their own histories, biases, and truths. I gave them permission to be blunt and politically incorrect. Even messy. For example, Ruth instinctively locks her car doors in a black neighborhood and immediately feels a stab of guilt. Once I imbued my characters with backstories, motivations, and wants, they revealed answers to my ultimate story question. Those answers aren’t absolute and they don’t fall neatly onto a straight line but neither do our lives or the forces that complicate them.

I spend a lot of time thinking about race and sometimes it frustrates me when others can’t or won’t see the world through my lens. Of course, I’ve set up an impossible expectation since each of us comes to our life stories from different vantage points. Still, I have uncomfortable questions I want to ask people on the other side of the racial divide but those conversations in social media often deteriorate into name-calling and rarely produce anything substantive or enlightening.

I believe others are asking similar questions to mine and I recognize that the novel is one place where we can start that dialogue. Ruth and Midnight live parallel lives in many ways in spite of their obvious differences. Shortly after they meet and form a tenuous bond, forces larger than themselves intrude. They’re tested by tragedy and the essence of how they walk in the world.

Writing a novel didn’t endow me with heightened awareness of race and class conflict and how to solve it. I wish it were that easy. Still, I have a new understanding and greater empathy after living with Ruth and Midnight for three years. And in that sense, they’ve answered my questions by sparking new ones.

What are the big questions you’re trying to answer in your novel? Share what you’ve learned in the comments!

Nancy E. Johnson is a writer with an Emmy-nominated, award-winning television journalism background. Her stories often explore life’s complexities at the intersection of race and class. She was named runner-up for the 2018 James Jones First Novel Fellowship Award. Her work has appeared in O, The Oprah Magazine and has received support from the Hurston/Wright Foundation, Tin House Summer Novel Workshop, and Kimbilio Fiction. Also, Nancy served an advisory board member for Author Accelerator’s diversity scholarship program. When Nancy’s not writing, you can often find her exploring bookstores, festivals, and restaurants in her hometown of Chicago. Nancy is represented by Danielle Bukowski at Sterling Lord Literistic.

Comments

My novel-in-progress includes many of the issues that concern me the most, including the corruption of truth, and how broken things can’t be fixed unless you’re willing to assess the whole. These things were a part of the story before last year, but they grew richer, more complex in 2017.

Therese, thanks for having me! I’m excited to be an official member of the Writer Unboxed community.

The “corruption of truth” sounds intriguing as a question to explore in your novel. I also find that the national and global issues we face nag at me and I use my novel as a way to get to my own truth.

Thanks again for inviting me to join this accomplished team of writers.

That is what I’m doing in my WIP. The main question is, why must the ones we love leave us? The question is sparked by the women in my past who are gone. Even while life moves on and becomes what it was meant to be, we never entirely stop loving those loves of our past.

My MC is haunted by his great love who is gone, a fugitive falsely accused but evidently guilty, a young woman who can see the future but disappeared from his.

There’s a religious dimension to the question too. The One who loved us and whom we love, left us. And has not returned. How are we to live with that? I give this question to my semi-immortal antagonist, who wants to die but is afraid to stop living.

As a man with a trans-racial family, I love your questions and your non-obvious, complex characters. Looking forward to the read. And welcome as a regular here. Looking forward to that too.

I can’t decide if I’m more intrigued by your novel or by the broader theme of your essay on the concept of questions a novel answers. All I know is that I want to read this novel. I kept looking for the title, hoping it was already published, but I’m assuming it’s a work-in-progress.

I love the sound of your novel and hope I will be able to read it soon. Those are indeed big questions, but they’re so important to who we’re going to be as a country moving forward. And it IS hard to have these discussions in social media or in real life. I’ve seen so many meltdowns in previously thoughtful groups over these questions, and everybody on both sides is so frustrated.

A novels gives everybody a chance to breathe a bit, mull things over without needing to defend a particular position.

Barbara, yes, these conversations are so important to have but we often retreat to our corners and fail to engage. The novel definitely offers a safe space and room to explore in a non-threatening way in the lives of our characters.

Nancy, so glad to see you’ll be a regular contributor to WU. I’m not sure I’ve completely broken down my novel into specific questions. But here are a few it asks (whether it answers them is another matter):

What, in life, is truly significant? Do we miss the little things that accumulate to make a life worth living, a life that makes a difference, because we’re so focused on the big, dramatic ones?

How do you change a family legacy? What do you accept as true from your parents, peers, and society in general? What do you question? How do you become your own person with your own values rather than simply piggybacking on someone else’s?

If you believe in a sovereign God who is also a loving God, how do you reconcile His goodness with the world’s corruption? If bad things happen, are those part of the plan? Do they surprise God? Or did He ordain them? Why? What is the purpose in pain? Or are we all just living in an accidental universe with no purpose whatsoever?

What’s interesting to me as I write these down is that they are not race-relations-specific, even though the story is about race relations and how far we have and have not come during the past 150 years of our country’s history. Race is the lens through which these questions are explored, but at its core this story is about grappling with the tensions we all live with, no matter what our race or background.

Hi, Erin! You ask some complex, profound, and important questions. I will be thinking about these as I continue reading your beautiful novel. I struggle with missing the small things in life because I’m preoccupied with the big macro questions.

The other interesting point you make is about how your novel centers on race relations yet it grapples with tensions that impact all of us. That’s what I hope my novel achieves – that it asks the readers questions that are universal enough to build connection and understanding across the lines that often divide us.

I hadn’t thought about posing the questions in every single scene but can see how that would give strength and impetus to a story. Thanks for sharing your philosophy with us. Now please get that book published so we can read it too. It sounds great.

Hi Nancy,
I remember you reading a small part of your book at WFWA 2016 and it has still stuck with me, and I look forward to reading it when it is published!
I’m reading Small Great Things right now, and so much of what you wrote is addressed in that novel. As a grandma to biracial grandkids, I can relate in a very small way to what you wrote. I want to throttle people for their comments -usually unintentionally hurtful, yet ignorant just the same.
I’m just starting to write book #3 and the question this novel will hopefully answer (it’s such a vague image for me right now) is do we really know our capabilities, and do we really know others?

Jill, I’m honored that you still remember my novel from that early reading. A lack of empathy often stems from a lack of understanding. I believe in the power of literature to bridge that gap even in small ways.

Reading your post made me really curious about that novel of yours! Looking forward to being able to read it. – And one phrase struck me: “people on the other side of the racial divide”. It made me sad – I don’t want to be divided from anyone just because of the colour of our skins. And actually I don’t feel I am – but maybe that is just me being naive in my happy multi-cultural bubble (living in the Netherlands, for the time being). I see my kids grow up playing with other children from all over world, and I feel that this is how it is supposed to be. – And now I have not even answered your question about the questions we have in our stories. But I still resonate from all the questions your phrase put in my head, so the other stuff has to wait. – At the moment all I want to do is bridge that divide. – Regards from over the Atlantic!

J, I’m waving to you in the Netherlands! Thanks so much for your perspective. I, too, feel hopeful about the future of race relations but there is so much work still to do.

As a writer, I try to broaden understanding and build empathy through the narrative. I’m not naive enough to think that a novel can solve problems we’ve been grappling with for years but if it can put a new question in your head like you said, that’s progress.

On the contrary: I think writing (or any art) can change a lot! Mankind used to learn through stories – first stories orally told, later stories written down. Children still learn a lot through stories. So every story well told can change the world. Bit by bit.

Nancy, thank you for your post. I followed the links so I could read your essay – talk about things coming full circle! I’m not sure I could have been as restrained as you were. What’s great, is that you didn’t need to say anything; you had already found your way forward regardless of her ignorance.

I think of the song from South Pacific, “Carefully Taught” and the essential statement of the song, which is that we have to be taught to hate and fear and see people as “other.” Your essay described one of the moments in which we are taught lessons that change, and can destroy, our lives.

My exploration of the questions you bring up are more in my conversations and interactions with people than they are in my current work-in-progress. The next project, however, is inspired by something that happened when I was in college. Or maybe I should say something that didn’t happen, and I never learned about the undertones until years later at a reunion. So I will try to write about what might have happened, in the hope of exploring some of those same questions.

There are so many things that divide us, race being one of the most obvious and most painful. One of the hardest things is to be willing to present with that division and not close our eyes to it. If we close our eyes, we can’t see our way through, can we?

Thanks again for sharing your work and your journey and your questions.

Carol, thanks for reading my O Magazine essay. Over the years, I worried about that bullying experience defining me for the rest of my life. Now I can say that it did in the best possible way. Losing my voice figuratively helped me find it again and share it in platforms (like O) that I could have never imagined.

It’s interesting that your’e exploring questions from your college days. Many of the questions of our novels come from the composite of our life experiences. Best of luck on your new project!

Here’s mine: How do people see disabilitiy, and why is it wrong for a disabled person to have the same goals and desires as an able one?

Society treats disabled people of any race as garbage: in the way, taking more space and resources than they deserve, and somehow icky as well.

Getting what many have already paid for and earned, as well as need to function in society, earn a living when possible, and simply get to a restroom or into a store or a seat at a restaurant table is a constant battle.

Getting love? Why would they get that? Aspiring to the same as other people are allowed to? Why?

The questions are, as you said, always there.

And must be hidden from the casual reader in GREAT entertainment – or the questions are too easy to discount, ignore, minimize. People’s hearts and minds are marked ‘No Trespassing.’ You have to be many times the writer as those who write young healthy characters, or healthy characters with a quirk (missing leg, eye patch, occasional PTSD) that doesn’t seem to keep the contrived plot from going the same way it would without the quirk.

Alicia, thank you for raising the issue of how we write or don’t write disabled characters in our novels. It’s similar to the way writers approach other types of diversity. For some, it’s a “check-the-box” mentality which isn’t helpful. Disabled people are people with hopes, ambitions, flaws, and everything else. When we deepen characterization, they’re fully human on the page and not just add-ons in the name of diversity.

I didn’t even realize it until I read this post, but the question that recurs again and again in my SF WIP is a more personal one : What will people do out of love for others? What risks will they take, what sacrifices will they make, and what horrific atrocities will they commit?

The tribal/familial instinct–the line between tribe and family is often blurred–manifests itself as race and class in today’s society, and relates to this: because people love their tribe, they will risk much, and sacrifice much for their tribe. And they may also do what they themselves hold to be terrible things, justifying their actions as being necessary for the tribe’s sake.

My MC is literally the product of a series of cruel crimes against dozens of children, all committed by their mother. Their mother loved them dearly, but loved the people of their world too, and did what she did to protect that world.

Now the MC struggles with her own choices of what to do out of her love for the people she loves, as do her antagonists. The latter group includes her mother, who killed her once and may again.

Of course, some of the antagonists are primarily motivated by self-love, and by darker things, but even they have people they love, even if they’ll never admit it to themselves.

Hello there. What will we sacrifice and risk at all costs for the people we love? That question presents such a great set-up to your novel. You’re writing science fiction and it’s fascinating to see how a potent, universal question can transcend genre. I could see that question brought to life in YA, women’s fiction, mystery, literary fiction, and more.

I remember Ruth very well from an online workshop I took part in last year. I was privileged to read and comment on The Kindest Lie and took so much away from the few pages you shared. I think many are grappling with how to live with “people on the other side of the racial divide.” In my case, and I know I’m not unique, they are sometimes my own family members, people I grew up knowing and loving and now don’t understand.

Thank you for articulating the very questions I am attempting to pose to my novel’s characters, in the quiet space of a family asking if unjustifiable mistakes of the past can be overcome and forgiven. The great hope, of course, is to answer such questions in our own lives.

Wila, hello again! Thanks for your kind words abut The Kindest Lie. I often hear that the most difficult conversations about weighty topics happen within families. Those are the times we risk so much to be vulnerable and share our truths.

I’m glad the questions I posed for my own novel are helping you think about the ones you want to explore in yours.

Nancy, I enjoyed your both your essays this morning (isn’t living well the best revenge?)–so much resonates. And all those questions! That’s what got me started writing in the first place.

I’ll quote St. Augustine: “It is also necessary—may God grant it!—that in providing others with books to read I myself should make progress, and that in trying to answer their questions I myself should find what I am seeking. Therefore at the command of God our Lord and with his help, I have undertaken not so much to discourse with authority on matters known to me as to know them better by discoursing devoutly of them.”

I so much appreciate this post, Nancy. It makes me think about how to focus my novel more intensely and precisely. I still need to ponder what that means in this case, but I suspect the focus will have something to do with determining how to live with good character in a way that is just and true amid corruption and tragedy. And it seems that some of your themes might echo that. I look forward to reading your book!

S.K., I’m glad my post is helping you think about your novel in new ways. How do we remain true to our core values in an environment that is the antithesis to them? That’s a strong question and an important one. I look forward to reading your book to find out how you explore that conundrum.

Hi Nancy! Your novel is memorable on so many levels as is its author. And the content of this post is so needed right now. My novel has gone through many changes, as has the world around me. More and more I ask questions of ME, the author–and those questions compel me to reconsider parts of the novel. I know my characters, but they are missing good choices in their lives and in the rewriting, I hope to shine more light on that.

The novel asks: can you ever really leave home?
Is loss always a negative or can it increase empathy, help a person become more at ease in a challenging world?
Am I answering those questions?

Hi, Beth! Your protagonist, Ella, has an important story journey to take and I think the questions you posed are good ones. Like you, changes in the world around me leave me with new questions all the time. I’m grateful that we have stories to broaden our understanding of what we don’t know.

Hi Nancy, Thank you for this and, as others have said, write well so that we may read your story.

The theme for my WiP is to have courage, for love endures. And it’s a theme that fits with my 2 storylines of how to deal with the violence in our lives–of a wealthy woman of privilege who loses her country yet survives WWII, and of a millennialist whose bi-racial family has to deal with an attack against one of their black cousins.

I’ve been serving a multi-racial congregation alongside an African American pastor. What a tremendous, humbling, joyful learning experience as we share worship, study, choir, and potlucks. These relationships of trust with people who are from such a different walk of life than mine, enrich my life, the life of the world.

These relationships make me ask, through my WiP: How do I become woke and stay woke, what small things can I do to change structures of privilege, how can I live so that I do no harm to people who are different from me? What a HUGE task, yet I keep doing what I can do because every little bit, I like to believe, makes a difference.

Stay woke! Yes, Lisa. Your take is an interesting one. It sounds like your life’s work and the relationships you’ve formed have inspired you to do some self-examination and ask yourself important questions. Now you’re working through the questions in your book.

I really believe this process gives meaning to our work as writers. I know it gives me a purpose. Thanks for sharing!

I think, sometimes, adversity sharpens our lens and race relations is quite a sharpener. My novel’s protagonist is white but from a very abusive background. Her friends are mostly mixed race. As a mixed blood, questions throughout my life have centered around self definition. So I began with several premises that were framed as questions and I kept them on index cards by my desk. The main premise dealt with quantum entanglements or how we cannot be defined without defining another. Because much of my background is American Indian, I also dealt with issues of secrets and the consequences of hiding the truth. While my characters are from many mixed races, there are strong themes of common adversity, shared experiences, and love that conquers and survives. Your post was like a breath of fresh air because sometimes it is hard to articulate the fact that race affects your lens but often sharpens your sense of common humanity.

Wow. It looks like your post stirred up a lot of writerly questions and made me think of my own for my WIP, a YA book titled, HALF-TRUTHS. I had to create a separate document to brainstorm this. Here is what I came up with: Does the color of your skin irrevocably divide you from another person of a different race? How does a person get over prejudice that’s been in-bred in her family for generations? What is involved in that struggle? What will she have to face in order to do that? Which factors about family or society or self are the biggest influencers in this struggle? How does a white person confront her own prejudices? Thanks for your thought-provoking post! Loved the idea that every scene needs to reflect these questions. I’ll teach this in my writing workshops!

Hi, Carol! Sorry it took me a couple days to get back with you here on the forum. First, I’m delighted to hear that you plan to teach this in your writing workshops!

These questions about race and prejudice are complicated yet so important to how we understand the world and our place in it. I’m glad you took the time to compose the questions your novel will address. It’s a helpful exercise to ensure that the book doesn’t go astray but instead stays connected to your core theme.

Welcome, Nancy! I’m a long-time WU contributor. Will look forward to meeting you in person one day.

My work-in-progress deals with issues around elder-care. i.e. How much latitude should people be given to make their own mistakes, or seek their own rewards, when their mind and health are beginning to fade?

Questions, questions, questions ,,, I love the unanswered questions that lead me down the path to a story, and I love that those questions often seem to evolve the deeper I get into the story and the more I get to know my characters. But I think the fundamental question my characters are all trying to answer (I write romance) is, “How do we love and allow ourselves to be loved in a world where everyone is flawed.” Thanks for the great post, Nancy, and I’m looking forward to the day your book drops so I can read about these intriguing characters you’ve created.

Grace, thank you for your note! My experience is similar to yours. I start with a larger question I want to explore but as I become more familiar with my characters and the story, new questions emerge.

Thanks to you for the helpful marketing tools you shared in your post! I look forward to staying connected.

Apologies for being a few days late to welcome you! This is quite the topic you’ve addressed for your first article.

I think the strongest and most resonant novels are those that DO force us to think about some pertinent question that’s being debated and discussed on a societal level. Race and class continue to be important topics of conversation. Your novel sounds fascinating and I can’t wait to read it.

The trilogy I’m working on deals with another theme of conflict over the last few centuries: science and religion. My belief is that we’re slowly moving into a different paradigm with both of them, where neither divisive religious practices nor materialist science are working for the world. Is there something that links the two, where both truth and meaning can coexist? More importantly, is there something fundamentally transcendent about humanity?

Hi, Matt! Your trilogy sounds fascinating. The questions that arise around the conflict between science and religion are quite timely. I’ve been reading more lately about the role faith plays in skepticism about things like climate change. You ask powerful questions about whether truth and meaning can co-exist. I’d like to think the answer is yes but I know it’s a complex issue and I can’t wait to see how your characters wrestle with it.

So wonderful to see you here! Thrilled that you will be a contributor.

Your post has made me think for days. I bet that is music to your ears! I keep thinking about what the questions are at the core of the WIP I am working on. And my answer is that there are several questions and they all feel somewhat simple and universal, but that doesn’t necessarily mean I should dismiss them as unworthy or unimportant.

I’m working on my debut novel. It is based on a memoir I started ten years ago. I’ve decided to fictionalize it and now it’s flowing. It’s based on my parent’s unique story and spans from the late 1960s to today. Think of a crazy but lovable family with a secret that may tear them apart, but thankfully doesn’t totally kill them! 🙂

At the core, my WIP asks: What if, in order to be true to who you really are, you have to hurt those you love in the process? What if by revealing the deeply held secrets that you carry, you need to sacrifice other portions of your life and happiness? Can you let someone go if you love them deeply knowing that you are actually freeing them to be their authentic self? How much can a family bear and still love each other, flaws and all?

I’ve thought long and hard about this and the theme seems to be authenticity. There are other issues involved but that one has risen to the surface. So I’m going with it!

I am so excited to read your book. I loved hearing about it when we spoke at the Women Fiction Writers Association conference last fall, and then when we were lucky enough to spend some time together in Chicago also! And what you posted here about the questions it tries to answer made me want to read it even more.

Hi, Lisa! I’m so glad you chimed in. Since I know a bit about the subject of your novel-in-progress, I believe those are the significant questions. Another take on the great questions you’re already exploring: Will we risk hurting the people we love to free ourselves? Can a family every unburden itself from the secrets of the past? How do we reconcile the ways we love when they’re different but both true? As you know, I can’t wait to read your novel!

Nancy,
Thank you for this! It was exactly what I needed to read right now. I am frozen in the current draft of my novel–I feel like I am trying to tell two conflicting stories and the feedback I have gotten from editors has suggested that I need to figure out the story I am trying to tell. Your article on answering the underlying questions and sticking to that question in each scene might be just what I need.